Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

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John Philo is one of 11 lawyers representing plaintiffs. The case could be heard in April.

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A federal judge has reopened a landmark challenge to Michigan’s law that lets the governor take control of a local government by appointing an emergency manager.

Filed against Gov. Rick Snyder and the state treasurer, the lawsuit has 11 lawyers working on behalf of more than 20 plaintiffs, including union leaders, ministers, Detroit school board members and city council members from Flint, Pontiac and Benton Harbor. They argue that the law puts a gubernatorial puppet in full control of a community or school district, overruling local voters in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

After a fresh round of legal filings, the case could be heard in April, attorneys for the plaintiffs said. A total of eight Michigan communities and school districts are run by emergency managers, including Allen Park, Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Hamtramck and the Detroit Public Schools.

Blocked by legal maneuvers for months, the case got a green light last week from U.S. District Judge George Steeh in Detroit, after both sides agreed to remove Detroit’s bankruptcy case and emergency manager from consideration, to avoid complicating the city’s case.

“So if we win, it won’t automatically remove (Detroit emergency manager) Kevyn Orr,” said John Philo, a lawyer with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit.

But a victory could trigger removal of other emergency managers now in place,and it could halt future appointments, such as those being considered for Lincoln Park, East Detroit Public Schools, Highland Park and Royal Oak Township. No other state has a law as far-reaching as Michigan’s Public Act 436, which lets the governor appoint emergency managers or intervene in other ways, Philo said Friday.

State officials and legislators who favor the emergency manager law, mainly Republicans, say it’s needed because some communities and school districts badly mismanage their finances. They say there’s a need in those areas for dramatic intervention by an outsider who isn’t beholden to local politics, unions or even the voters.

“None of this would be necessary if there weren’t fiscal crises that haven’t been addressed,” Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said in an e-mail Friday.

“Local governments are subdivisions of the state, and the governor — an elected official — has a clear constitutional role and responsibility in addressing these financial emergencies and protecting the health, safety and welfare of residents, and ensuring that students get the education they need and deserve,” Wurfel wrote.

Those who oppose the law cite ways they say that corporate interests allied with political power let society’s weakest links slide into insolvency.

“The impact of the decisions in Lansing is saying, those of you who’ve been abandoned by capital flight, by union busting, by offshoring our manufacturing, by cutting off revenue sharing from the state — we’re taking control because you didn’t fix the mess we left you,” said plaintiffs lawyer Julie Hurwitz.

The law flouts key democratic principles, said the Rev. Charles Williams II, pastor of Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit and a plaintiff. “My vote is being invalidated,” Williams said. Yet, those who favor the law say it respects what matters most to local voters — their needs.

“People say this violates democracy, but what about when all the streetlights are out?” said Lou Schimmel, Pontiac’s emergency manager until August. Schimmel replaced the city police with a larger force of less-costly county deputies, dropping response times from an hour to less than 10 minutes, he said.

But Pontiac City Council objected strenuously to Schimmel’s every move, including his drastic cuts to members’ pay and benefits. Two of them are plaintiffs on the lawsuit.

“The intent of the governor is to send in people that will really help folks,” said Grosse Pointe Shores City Manager Mark Wollenweber. Appointed by Snyder, Wollenweber has been devoting one day a week to be on a team reviewing the troubled finances of Royal Oak Township.

The team’s Jan. 24 report, citing decades of corruption and deficits, declared the township to be in a financial emergency. Under the law, Snyder now must decide whether the township of about 2,400 residents should be governed by an emergency manager, bankruptcy judge or other form of oversight.

On Thursday, at a trustees board meeting in Royal Oak Township, state Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton, D-Huntington Woods, said the governor could act at any moment.

The emergency manager law “is a very, very troubling statute,” Lipton said.